From Brian Horton to Tim Walter, Rich Gardham assesses every decision to dismiss a Hull City manager since 1988 in this updated article from 2024’s Tigers Eye fanzine
‘Ooof, that’s a bit harsh.’ When news of Liam Rosenior’s sacking broke, I just
happened to be in the company of dozens of Hull City fans. The aforementioned
response was one of the kinder exclamations. The dismissal came as something of a
gut punch to many City fans, recalibrating as they were from years of disconnect with
the club under the Allams, and finally rejoicing that we had both owners and a
manager that ‘got us’. One of those relationships was ended on May 7; the other hit
its first bump in the road.
The second bump came when it became apparent that Tim Walter’s brand of
football, whatever it was meant to be, was only leading City in one direction. And that
direction was towards Mansfield, Exeter, Stevenage.
But how harsh was Liam’s sacking when compared to others in Hull City’s history? There can be little doubt that it came out of the blue, and that the wider football world seems to feel a large degree of sympathy with our erstwhile manager. City sackings have had the ability to both shock and unite the fanbase over the years, and what follows is a list of those sackings, with a shock rating of one to ten (ten being the most shocking). The list starts with Brian Horton’s dismissal in 1988, because a) there weren’t that many City managers who were controversially sacked before then, b) that evening against Swindon was widely considered to be the starting point of a demise for the club that continued throughout the 1990s, and, most importantly, c) that’s as far back as I can remember.
So, excluding the resignations and poachings of that time (namely Peter Taylor, Nigel Pearson, Steve Bruce, Marco Silva and Nigel Adkins) here is your ‘how harsh?’ guide to Hull City’s managerial sackings since 1988.
Brian Horton (1988) Matches: 195 (one promotion); win percentage: 39.48
For many years the granddaddy of miscarriages of justice when it came to managerial sackings at Hull City. Brian Horton had taken the club to promotion in his first full season, generally had us punching above our weight in the Second Division, and was as astute as it gets in the transfer market. That said, the 1987/88 season wasn’t really all that great. When we lost 4-1 at home to Swindon on April 12, it was the 13th league game in a row we’d failed to win. A bright start to the season that had seen us get to Hallowe’en with only one defeat was a distant memory. And, whisper it quietly, there were many chants from the South Stand and Kempton that night calling for the removal of both Horton and Don Robinson.
After the game, Robinson acted in haste and was left to repent at leisure as he fired Horton, only to change his mind the next morning when a collection of senior players asked him to reconsider. Horton had had enough, however, and left Boothferry Park. In the modern game, any manager going 13 games without a win is going to be under pressure, and in 1988 such a run didn’t exactly go down well with the supporters. But Horton had perhaps become a victim of his own success. We weren’t going to go down that season, we had some money in the bank, we had a succession of promising youngsters coming through. At the very least, he deserved another summer and early season to right this wrong. City went into freefall, never consistently hitting the heights of ‘mid-table in the second tier’ again until the next millennium. It would be a long, long time before we had a manager fit to lace Horton’s boots in the Boothferry Park dugout again.
How harsh? 9/10
Eddie Gray (1989) Matches: 51; win percentage: 25.49
Leeds and orange ball legend Eddie Gray managed Hull City for one season, and it was quite enjoyable, truth be told. Home wins against Man City and Chelsea, Andy Payton’s wonder goal against Brighton, taking the lead against Arsenal and Liverpool in cup competitions, Keith and Big Billy reunited, Little Billy returning from injury and playing like he’d stolen Ferenc Puskas’ left foot… All wonderful memories. However, after the famous Liverpool FA Cup game, City finished the season winning only one game in 18, despite laying out some serious money on Peter Swan and Ian McParland. Eddie also sold Skip and Tony (and brought in Iain Hesford and Malcolm Murray), so it was hard to feel too much sympathy when the axe fell. That said, when you look at who Don Robinson was looking to replace Eddie with, maybe another season of the Scotsman would have been worth a try.
How harsh? 4/10
Colin Appleton (1989) Matches: 16; win percentage: 6.25
Don Robinson decided that what Boothferry Park needed was the return of Colin Appleton. And he was right, but that was only because the changing rooms needed re-panelling. Colin came in, sold Keith Edwards (who’d been the league’s joint top scorer the season previous) to Stockport, bought Steve Doyle and then proceeded to show that football had changed a lot in the five years since he’d last managed the Tigers. The one win in the 16 matches he managed came against Grimsby in the League Cup, and even then we lost the return fixture 2-0. Colin was out of his depth and it was an act of mercy when the shepherd’s crook came.
How harsh? 1/10
Stan Ternent (1991) Matches: 62; win percentage: 30.64
Stan Ternent was a breath of fresh air at first. In his first (sort of) game in charge we beat Bradford 3-2 at Valley Parade with a last-minute winner, and impressive away wins at Wolves, West Ham, Swindon, Sunderland and Ipswich helped City to their traditional final position of 14th in Division Two. However, Stan loved spending money – and offering very big wages – on players who had seen better days, such as Dave Bamber and Gwyn Thomas. When prize asset Richard Jobson was sold early the next season to make financial ends meet, Stan had no answer. The club kept one clean sheet between the first game of the season and his sacking in mid-January. Save for Swan and Payton up front, we were a shambles. A very expensive shambles at that. Ternent was to later prove that he was a very good coach (and scout, when he returned to City) but his sacking was thoroughly justified.
How harsh? 2/10
Terry Dolan (1997) Matches: too many; win percentage: 30.74
The 1990s were the worst decade in Hull City’s history, and at the helm for six-and-a-half years of those ten was Terry Dolan. I mean, fucking hell. We were relegated in his first half-season, but he largely escaped any blame for that. He’d inherited a mess. And, after a rough first season back in the third tier, we actually had a couple of enjoyable campaigns where we flirted with the play-offs, inspired by Dean Windass but helped along by the likes of Alan Fettis, Rob Dewhurst, Greg Abbott, Neil Mann and Linton Brown. Then came the anti-football, the endless flirtations with bankruptcy, the protests, the club at odds with much of the fan base, the relegation, the new contract Dolan was bizarrely offered, our lowest ever league position. It was grim. Dolan was a decent man by all accounts, as was his partner in mediocrity Martin Fish, but he managed a decline in a way that no other City manager had ever overseen. Yes, he had no money, but in the 1990s in the lower leagues very few teams had much cash to spend. And the lack of money didn’t explain away the awful brand of football and the ditching of the hitherto successful youth team. When the Needlers finally sold the club, the new owners’ first move was to get rid of Dolan and assistant Jeff Lee (though, in a portent of what was to come, they even managed to bugger that up). Very, very few tears were shed.
How harsh? 1/10
Mark Hateley (1998) Matches: 76; win percentage: 22.36
Just bab.
How harsh? 0/10
Warren Joyce (2000) Matches: 86 (one great escape); win percentage: 38.37
Warren came in with the club at the bottom of the Football League, at one point by six points. He marginalised Hateley’s powderpuff non-entities and brought in the likes of Gary Brabin, Justin Whittle and Jon Whitney, while galvanising players such as Mark Greaves, Mike Edwards and David Brown. The Great Escape was achieved with games to spare. However, the summer that followed was pivotal. Tom Belton – who had appointed Warren – was ousted by Stephen Hinchliffe and Nick Buchanan. The capture of John Eyre raised hopes but, that aside, the signings were bargain basement affairs, such as Steve Morgan, Jason Harris and John Schofield. City bumbled about in mid-table for the 1999/2000 season, which wasn’t good enough for the impetuous owners who had assumed that the Great Escape form would lead to a promotion push. After winning 4-0 away at Carlisle, Warren was sacked. He remains the most important manager in Hull City’s history. Never let anyone tell you otherwise, kids.
How harsh? 8/10
Brian Little (2002) Matches: 97 (one play-off run); win percentage: 42.26
Even though his managerial career was spiralling a little, getting Brian Little to Boothferry Park was quite a coup for Hinchliffe and Buchanan. However, any good he was doing on the pitch was quickly derailed by events off the pitch, as the club came as close as it ever had to non-existence. The owners’ business practices were, ahem, questionable and halfway through the 2000/01 season the receivers were called in. This seemed to galvanise the players and Brian himself. No one was being paid, no one knew if the club would survive, but buoyed by the return to favour of the likes of Brabin and Whitney, and with Kevin Francis and Rodney Rowe creating havoc up front, City went on an exceptional run of form. When Adam Pearson rescued the club in the March and brought in the likes of Andy Holt and Gary Fletcher, the play-offs came into view nicely, only for our dreams to be shattered at Brisbane Road.
Flush with Adam Pearson’s money in the summer of 2001, Little got rid of Brabin, Eyre, Whitney and Francis and made 13 new signings, breaking the club’s long-standing transfer record on Lawrie Dudfield, and spending more on sought-after forwards such as Gary Alexander and Ryan Williams. The season started well but when the clocks went back, the lack of nasty bastards saw the club become something of a soft touch in the division and the wins became less and less frequent. A horrible home defeat to Macclesfield in late February saw Little get his P45, despite the club still being in the play-off spots. Premature? Maybe. But given the resources Little had been given in the summer, it was possible to see why Adam Pearson felt short-changed.
How harsh? 7.5/10
Jan Molby (2002) Matches 17; win percentage: 11.76
Altogether now: “Well he signed Ian Ashbee, Stuart Elliott and Stuart Green.” That’s about it, though. Molby seemed to alienate many players in his short time at the club, unable to rein in his considerable ego. Back-to-back wins against Cambridge and Carlisle raised hopes at one point but in truth, Molby was just the wrong fit. Did he have long enough? Probably not. Did anyone object to his sacking at the time? Not really.
How harsh? 3/10
Phil Parkinson (2006) Matches: 24; win percentage: 20.83
After Peter Taylor had been tempted by Simon Jordan’s massive ego to up sticks and take up residence at Selhurst Park, City became one of several teams trying to lure the hottest young managerial talent in the Football League. That man was Phil Parkinson, who had just gotten Colchester promoted. When City managed to get him (for a sizeable fee) it was seen as a real coup. Sadly, his marquee signings – Michael Turner, Sam Ricketts, Dean Marney – were initially underwhelming. So were the results, with neither the manager nor players seemingly able to recover from surrendering a two-goal lead at home to Barnsley in the second game of the season. A 5-1 defeat at Colchester of all places all but ended Parkinson’s time at City, though his final game came at home to Southampton when the Gareth Bale-inspired visitors beat us 4-2. We couldn’t afford a relegation. New buyers were sniffing around. Adam Pearson pulled the trigger. As with Molby, it was a brief stay that saw some enormously important players come through the door. And as with Molby, it was hard to argue that sacking Phil Parkinson was the wrong decision.
How harsh? 3/10
Phil Brown (2010) Matches: 157 (one promotion); win percentage: 33.12
You all know Phil Brown’s achievements. No Hull City manager has created history like Phil, no City manager so impressively overachieved when measuring his resources against those of the teams he was outperforming. I won’t go over the saving us from relegation, the first trip to Wembley, the first foray into the top flight, the wins at Newcastle, Arsenal, Tottenham, the staying up in 2009 against all odds. You know all that, and Phil Brown will be a club legend for the rest of time because of these feats.
Summer 2009 saw our owners try to sell the club. They couldn’t, largely because the financial crisis was making football clubs less alluring to investors. City sold our best two defenders from the season previous – Michael Turner and Sam Ricketts – for a combined total of £6m (some of which went to Brentford and Swansea in sell-on clauses) and a continued stay in the top flight became reliant upon new signings such as Ibrahima Sonko, Kamil Ghilas, Jozy Altidore, Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink and Seyi Olofinjana. In hindsight we can perhaps see that the fact we were still in with a chance of avoiding relegation come March was a minor miracle. Phil Brown was put on gardening leave after an unlucky 2-1 home defeat to Arsenal, and was to be sacked in the June. For some reason, it was deemed that Iain Dowie was more suited to masterminding our survival.
And yet, there was some good reason for Brown’s sacking. His God complex had got out of hand. The half-time team talk at Manchester City in December 2008 had been an awful mistake, turning players against him, but he didn’t seem to get that. He seemed to see himself as the star of the show, taking the microphone to serenade the crowd after the last game of the 2008/09 season when we’d staved off relegation. His dress sense, his media appearances… they all pointed to a man who’d lost touch with the qualities that had made him so special in the first place. And yet (again) that squad was not really fit for Premier League football, through no fault of Phil’s. He was still coaxing some great performances (Chelsea, Man City) from a group of players that was way below Premier League standard, particularly when Hunt and Bullard were injured. Looking back, he should have been given until the end of the season, but if I’m being honest, when I heard that he had been relieved of his duties in March 2010, I was more in favour of the decision than against. As were most City fans.
How harsh? 7/10
Iain Dowie (2010) Matches: 9; win percentage: 11.11
Why him? What was the point? Did absolutely nothing to reverse our fortunes. Just utterly pointless.
How harsh? 1/10
Nick Barmby (2012) Matches 33; win percentage: 39.39
That win percentage might surprise a few people. It’s higher than Warren Joyce, Phil Brown, Nigel Pearson, Marco Silva, Nigel Adkins, Grant McCann and Liam Rosenior, and that’s in spite of Nick having no real investment in the team in his brief time in the dugout. That’s also in spite of a horrible injury crisis that saw him shorn of his best centre-backs and centre-forwards for chunks of the spring. The signings he did make were Robbie Brady – who after his sending off at Southampton, no one really wanted back on loan, but who would become a very good player we would eventually make a huge profit on – and Josh King, who went on to have a very good career in the Premier League and internationally for Norway. Nick got much more right than he got wrong.
Ultimately, he seemed to get caught up in the crosshairs of a dispute between Adam Pearson and the Allams. The manner in which his fairly anodyne comments in a Radio Humberside interview were used to justify his sacking was sickening to witness. He deserved much, much better, both as a person, but also as a manager, given the bright start he’d made to his career in the dugout. His status as a Hull City legend of the highest order remains undimmed, however.
How harsh? 8/10
Mike Phelan (2017) Matches 24; win percentage: 25.00
Came in after Steve Bruce realised he couldn’t work with the Allams, inherited a shambles with barely enough players to form a starting XI, gave us one of the most memorable opening games of the season ever, but that was as good as it got. Spending all that money on Ryan Mason looked a poor decision even before his horrible injury, but you just got the sense that Ehab never really believed in Phelan. Based on results, the sacking was justified, but based on the circumstances it was harsh on Mike.
How harsh? 5/10
Leonid Slutsky (2017) Matches 21; win percentage: 19.04
It was fun while it lasted, but for mostly the wrong reasons. Hull Fair visits aside, Slutsky’s time at Hull City was memorable for shambolic defending and an inability to make the most of the impressive attacking talents he had available, including a young Jarrod Bowen. Leonid’s lack of knowledge of the Championship and his unsuitability for English football was evident by the time the axe fell, and – beyond a handful of stallholders on Walton Street – few mourned his departure.
How harsh? 2/10
Grant McCann (2022) Matches: 136 (one promotion); win percentage: 38.97
Tricky one this. And that’s because, had McCann received his marching orders at half-time when we were 7-0 down to Wigan, the ‘how harsh’ ratio would have been set at zero. However, Ehab stuck with his man and we were rewarded with a first league title since 1966 to help us through the Covid lockdowns. Grant then made a decent fist of Championship life, with relatively sparse resources. He also put his faith in youth, and we have been rewarded handsomely there. So when Sandy Row’s finest did receive his marching orders, there was widespread sympathy for him even though he was leaving us in a similar position to that in which he found us, in a reign punctuated by a grim relegation and highly enjoyable promotion. Our budget was very much towards the lower reaches of the Championship, so to generally have us holding our own in the division was pretty impressive. He was infinitely better suited to managing a Championship team than his successor too…
How harsh? 7/10
Shota Avelardze (2022) Matches: 30; win percentage: 30.00
Our new owners had all but appointed Shota before they’d been given the keys to the MKM. He was their man due to the fact that… well… errmmm… he’d done a pretty good job managing in Uzbekistan. So of course he was going to take the Championship by storm. He was okay-ish in his half-season after taking over from McCann, but had a horrendous summer in which he lost the likes of KLP and George Honeyman and brought in a load of attacking talent that was high on wages, low on end product and AWOL in defence. It was painful in the end, and apparent that a summer spending spree that was going to hit us hard on the FFP side of things for seasons to come had been an utter shambles. When the axe came, its falling was an act of kindness.
How harsh? 1/10
Liam Rosenior (2024) Matches: 78; win percentage: 34.62
Two things can (sort of) contradict each other and be true at the same time. Liam Rosenior took over a side that was a wreck, shored up the defence and made us into a play-off challenging side capable of beating anyone in the Championship. However, Liam Rosenior was given attacking weapons the envy of pretty much every other manager in the division and his side managed to turn in turgid home performance after turgid home performance. Liam’s likeability, and relative inexperience, meant that a majority of fans were in camp one when he received his marching orders. Crucially, however, our owners were in camp two.
After the awful Stoke game on Good Friday, it was at the back of my mind that the owners wouldn’t tolerate many more performances like that. When measured against the ability available within the team, it was in some respects the worst City performance I’ve ever seen (I know that Dolan and Hateley in particular served up worse, but they had much poorer players at their disposal). To not even register a shot on goal against a limited Stoke side in front of a full house… that wasn’t what Acun had signed up for. To be fair, Liam got a response from the players. The way we attacked in the 3-3 draw at home to Ipswich in particular was a world away from our Bad Friday. A finish outside of the play-offs seemed to mean that games such as Stoke lingered longer in Acun and Tan’s minds than the pulsating stuff on show against Ipswich, however, and Liam paid the price.
It was harsh. Liam is still very inexperienced in football management terms. He had not long since signed a long-term contract. And we were in with a shout of the play-offs until the penultimate game of the season, in a Championship that was largely considered to be of a higher quality than most can remember. Yes, the possession at the back could be frustrating at times (we had the most touches in our own half of any team in the division) but such issues seemed like minor gripes, not sackable offences.
Liam Rosenior was a fantastic ambassador for Hull City too. He got the fans, he got the city, and after so many years of division and despair under the Allams, his approach came as a blessed relief. Supporting City in Liam’s time at the helm was so, so easy. I’m gutted he’s gone. I do kind of get the footballing reasons behind it. And, being totally honest, I’ve seen us get to the Premier League three times. I’d love to go back, but there are more important things for me, such as being able to wallow in that feeling of camaraderie that Liam inculcated. Our owners have invested a lot of time and money in the club, however, and they don’t have that luxury. It was an impatient decision but Acun and Tan have earned the right to be impatient. I wish Liam was still our manager though.
How harsh? 8.5/10
Tim Walter (2024) Matches: 17; win percentage: 17.65
A strange appointment. When popular young manager and former player of distinction Nick Barmby was hastily sacked by the Allams, the fans were placated by the sight of Steve Bruce in the dugout. When popular young manager and former player of distinction Liam Rosenior was hastily sacked by Acun, we got someone who very few people had ever heard of, and who had no experience of English football. It was always going to be a risk.
‘Heart-attack football’ we were promised, but fans watching City under Tim Walter – three consecutive wins against poor Stoke, QPR and Cardiff teams aside – were more likely to suffer from narcolepsy. We failed to score in eight of Walter’s 17 league games, while keeping just one clean sheet. Outside of that aforementioned mini-purple patch, we scored six goals in 14 league games. The players just didn’t seem to buy in to his brand of football or his style of management. And when Tim insisted on goal music, (sort of) criticised the fans after the Pompey game and refused to applaud the support at various away games, you couldn’t help but wonder what he thought he was going to get out of picking such needless fights.
As ever, there were mitigating circumstances. The club had undergone its third major player upheaval in three summers. We’d lost some very good loan players as well as the likes of Jacob Greaves, Jean Michaël Seri, Jaden Philogene and Ozan Tufan. We lost Tan Kesler – who had seemed to be a key Walter ally – a couple of months into the season. Such tumult perhaps warrants patience. Injuries and bans to key players didn’t help. There were also those ‘fine margins’. City could and should have been out of sight by half-time in the matches against Portsmouth and Oxford. We were probably the better team against Luton. Refereeing decisions went against us, notably in the Sunderland match. But those fine margins work the other way too. QPR and Stoke should have been out of sight after 20 minutes of our games against them, stopped only by an inspired Ivor Pandur. That Pandur or Lewie Coyle have been our players of the season – a goalkeeper and a right-back – tells its own story.
So, if anything, the sacking seems overdue. Tim Walter just didn’t have the ingredients to make a success of things at this level with Hull City. When your attacking corners pose more of a threat to your own goal than the opposition’s, you know something is very wrong. By the end of his tenure, he cut something of a pathetic figure on the touchline. His radio interviews were painful to listen to and spoke of a man with no real idea of what was going wrong, and therefore no real idea of how to fix things. Keeping him any longer would have been unfair to the fans, the players and to Walter himself.
How harsh? 1/10